So this is where Auburn is: defending on all fronts, overwhelmed on all sides, barely holding on.

At this point, we remind you that a mere two years ago, Auburn won college football's BCS National Championship.

Did Michael Dyer get his grades changed just so he could participate in the BCS title game? (AP Photo)

Since then, we've seen multiple NCAA investigations, two former players killed (and one current player shot) at a pool party, an armed robbery involving four players, a private security firm hired to make sure players make curfew, the worst season in decades, and a coach fired and paid off for $7.5 million.

And you thought the big spring question was Kiehl Frazier's ability to throw the ball.

While we debate the latest uncovering of slime and alleged NCAA crime on The Plains, let me remind you of this: The guy charged with fixing it all, new coach Gus Malzahn, was knee-deep in the process little more than a year ago.

ESPN reported that the father of a former Auburn player says then-offensive coordinator Malzahn (and other coaches) asked family members of current players to "visit" with high school recruits and sell Auburn. Auburn denied the report — just as it denied separate reports of players receiving cash and grade changes to stay with the program and/or stay eligible.

The common denominator in both reports: three former players awaiting trial on robbery charges — one that begins next week. The common thread that, still, after all these decades, hasn't been addressed: the culture of corruption that overfed those three players.

From Eric Ramsey and Pat Dye in the 1980s, to the player payment ledger Wayne Hall laid on Terry Bowden's desk the day he was hired in the 1990s, to the alleged grade changes to keep star tailback Michael Dyer eligible for the 2010 BCS National Championship Game.

"You have to understand," Bowden once told me. "Nothing will change until the root of the problem is addressed."

Go ahead and blame former coach Gene Chizik or athletic director Jay Jacobs or a handful of disgruntled players staring at jail time getting their last swings in. I'll point to the very thing that has made the Loveliest Village a breeding ground for jock-sniffing boosters and players with their hands out.

Ultimately — and this always gets lost in the muck — it's a personal decision. Players take money, coaches funnel money through boosters, boosters try to become bigger than the program.

And when it happens over and over and over, it becomes accepted — and expected — culture. That's when players take advantage; that's when a problem that should be addressed and eliminated becomes a second and third chance.

That's when players realize the risk of taking cash or other benefits is minimal; the reward much greater. When consequences are essentially eliminated from the thought process.

Troy Smith took $500 from an Ohio State booster, and was suspended from the Alamo Bowl. Two years later, he won the Heisman Trophy.

Miami (Fla.) players accepted money and gifts and benefits from booster Nevin Shapiro, transferred and were allowed to continue to play elsewhere.

Cam Newton's father shopped him to the highest bidder, and the NCAA concluded that Newton — a grown man who had been through off-field problems at his first school (Florida) and who had twice gone through the recruiting process — didn't know of his father's sordid plans.

The worst thing — the absolute worst thing — that could have happened at Auburn was winning the 2010 national championship. All that did was reinforce the corrupt culture.

It's like throwing gasoline on a grease fire — until it burns to the very core. Championship programs simply don't win it all one year, and then become the first team in the history of the Associated Press to complete the worst season within two years of winning a championship.

Typically, it goes something like this: win a championship, recruiting improves exponentially, win more championships (see: Alabama). Unless, that is, the very foundation of what you do and who you are has rotted away long ago.

Unless, that is, you stumble upon fools' gold by landing an elite player — who turned in the greatest single season in the history of the game — and then hold on tight while he carries you to unthinkable heights.

Decades of dirty dealings for one national championship. Reward, ladies and gentlemen, can't outrun risk.